In January came a dry frozen time, hard and cold. Each cow made a long white breath in the morning air. Henry worked all day at fencing and Ellen was never done finding wood and bringing it to the cabin to keep the fire on the hearth. In the night sometimes lonely horsehoofs went galloping along the beaten mould of the pasture road, thumping on the frozen dirt. The sound would waken her with a thrill of pleasure, a joy at being awakened for any purpose, at feeling herself suddenly alive again. Into the joy would come a sadness at the lonely throb of the horse’s feet that were going, the unspeakable loneliness that settled down on the road and the yard, on the cabin, on her own body, as the pulse of the hoofs beat dimmer on her ears and faded further and further away. Her mother’s words would call out in the lonely stillness of her mind. ‘Where’s the fellows that ought to be a-comen?’ She had been brushing her hair before the kitchen mirror, looking into her own clear eyes. ‘What fellows?’ she had said, dreaming over her hair. ‘A big grown girl, nigh to eighteen and no fellows a-comen!’ She had been lifting a lock of her hair, making it lie in different ways, searching out the ways of hair. The taunt had come upon her unprepared and now the words would probe the still dark after the passer was gone. A hard cry snarled into the dark. ‘Where’s the fellows that ought to be a-comen?’
She had not been thinking of them as fellows, fellows that should come. The house had grown very flat and still afterward, and objects had sunk into each other. All the rest of the day she had spoken in a stifled voice, scarcely heard. It was expected of her, something undefined and expected, she would think, abashed, something stated boldly through the words of a hard voice. ‘A big girl eighteen and no fellows…’ All day, all week a great still cry had gone out of her. Unjust become just become unjust, confusion and hard hands laid on her throat. She came timidly into the house and went silently about her labours. Henry was loading his crop onto the wagon frame, preparing for the market, and Ellen helped arrange the hands of it in the mounds, working in the cold with quick arms. The crop had been short for Henry was but a slow worker, but it would pay for the food they had eaten and the clothes they had worn, and perhaps there would be a little over. On the dry open days Henry worked at the new plant bed, grubbing out more space on the virgin hill, and soon the light was set to the fagots and Ellen grew bolder again with the spring. One night not long after the coming of the first signs of the new season, into sleep came a beautiful tonk tonk tonk a-tonk of guitar strings out on the pasture road, some man that lived in the glen behind the hills going home. Strong rhythms came beating in the rich harmonies, coming out of the pasture that all day had been sopping mud – tonk tonk a-tonk tonk; quick notes danced under the firm beat of the chords and other quick notes ran lightly down while the mellow chord waited. The tones came very beautifully over her waking body, but they were scarcely recognised until they began to recede into the night, growing less vividly present as consciousness came. They rounded the osage shrubs and moved lightly away toward the west, changing rhythms with inter-playing chords and transitional notes that scurried down flights of tune. Ellen had not known that such a thing could be – full-throated chords falling quick and strong, beautiful, breaking in upon dreams, rising out of the muddy pasture. In the end a voice jerked into song, leaping into the middle of the sweet string tones,
Oh…
Say darlin’ say,
When I’m far away…
It was gone and sleep came back over her languorous mind that was haunted now by the people who moved and lived just beyond her knowledge and acquaintance, apparitions from beyond the hill and from the river glen.
Effie Turpin came to see her during the summer, staring in understanding and good will. She told the names of all the people who lived up and down the roads and who owned land and who rented. Sebe Townley was a nice fellow and Mr Jim, his uncle, played on a guitar and was a master musicianer. She herself lived in the torn-downdest place you’d ever see, just a plumb shanty. She talked often of Miss Cassie MacMurtrie who was, she said, free-hearted and kind, would give anything she had to a body that needed it. She could ride a horse like a man, out on the hills of a night with Scott and the men. The next day you would see her busy with the hens, managing the little chickens, cooking the dinner sometimes, and milking if the hands were gone. A pretty woman, a beauty with big quick eyes and a heavy suit of hair. When she herself had had lung fever one winter Miss Cassie had come every day for a while and had brought a warm comforter and something hot to rub on her chest to drive the frost out of her lungs. Miss Cassie owned the land herself for she had heired it from her father, but Scott MacMurtrie, her husband, worked it and made a heap of money off his fine horses and his crops until he was as rich as cream. Effie would leave slowly, reluctantly, hardly able to go at all, and long after her departure Ellen would keep a rich sense of the land, all the land about, as filled with an ever-increasing people, gathering into her knowledge incessantly. People were coming into the land, filling the country all about, and her life ran more quickly, leaping from day to day, as her knowledge spread beyond the farm and took in MacMurtrie’s, spread even further and caught at the farms in the glen where names and faces were now known a little.
One day in autumn when Ellen came down from the hill with a few hickory nuts in her apron, another girl came up MacMurtrie’s path just beyond the wire fence. The tractor in the distant barnlot, where the silo was being filled, made a low throb run through the farm while she stopped to talk, and this pulse beat into her sense of the girl, whose hair was pale brown and whose fingers tapped lightly on the wires of the fence, slim fingers with wild grape stains about their tips. She had never seen this girl before and they told each other their names. The richness of the autumn came into the air, the throb of the engine, the abundance of the farm, the hickory nuts which she offered to the girl and which her thin hands took. She was Dorine Wheatley.
‘We moved into MacMurtrie’s tenant house a while back,’ she said. ‘Are there any parties around here? Any fellows to have a good time with?’
The broods of turkeys were white instead of brown for Miss Tod was trying a white breed, and the waves of their undulating bodies as they flowed about Ellen up and down the pasture were white and dusty yellow. Miss Amanda Cain, who lived with the MacMurtries, a cousin to Miss Cassie, raised bronze fowls and Miss Tod had changed to the white sort to save confusion. All summer Ellen had heard a cry over toward the marsh, a woman calling
‘Pee-o-wee-wee-wee-wee.’ It came like a high thin whistle out of the land, but later Ellen knew that it was Miss Amanda calling home her turkeys. Miss Amanda was some cousin of Miss Cassie’s who had no land, no property, and had lately come to live at the farm. Effie Turpin brought news of her when she came and later had news of her enterprise, the turkeys, and of her finery. Sometimes Miss Amanda rode over the farm on horseback, her slim feet dangling in little shoes, or at other times she would go away along the pike with Miss Cassie, riding in the high buggy Miss Cassie used. Then she would wear a large black hat with a plume or a stiff little hat with a feather, and her lips would break into easy smiles. Hearing the high thin cries in the autumn Ellen would remember the one time when she had met Miss Amanda on a path. Her bright cotton dress had come flashing in the way and she had walked quickly by, without a greeting, her mouth lifted into a bent smile and her eyes slanting away as if she said, ‘I don’t care!’ Even in her denial she added to the increasing richness of the farms.
The yield of the autumn was abundant that year, the crops fair, the corn plentiful in the shocks, the pumpkins many in number and great in size. Ellen helped Henry to gather the apples in the bright fresh cold of an October day, and she saved the largest apple for the new girl, Dorine, whose name came often to her mind as holding much generous grace and much music. She intended to go to see the girl some day and to carry the apple for a little gift. Dorine was easy to know, for by the time Ellen had found the largest apple she had seen her ride along the pike with one of the young men from beyond
the hill. She had already brought something to the farms, something facile and free, mingled with the abundance of the season and the secure hope for the winter, whatever its weather. The days flowed swiftly around the tasks of garnering, the burying of the apples under their straw, the burying of the potatoes, the plucking of the corn. Apples had been dried in the sun and beans were shelled and laid by. The pumpkins were brought from the field in wagon-loads and a choice few were set in Miss Tod’s cellar for winter food. Then Henry began to plough his tobacco field for its stand of rye and the season was done.
Too eager to wait for supper, Ellen brushed back her hair before the kitchen mirror, put on her cloak, and ran away toward Dorine Wheatley’s home where there was to be a party. Her head was bare in the frosty night and her hair caught the vigour of the air und crisped richly over her forehead. Her dark skirt had been brushed that afternoon and her waist inspected for holes and loose buttons. Her shoes had been viewed in several moods, critically, hopelessly, hopefully, carelessly, mournfully, but in all moods they were old and worn. When she drew near the small white house that stood close beside the road, half a mile from her home, noises were bursting from its walls, voices and footfalls. A thin flat music came merrily over the other sounds, over the quick feet pursuing other quick feet, a slow foot settling back upon itself leisurely, little steps of women and long heavy steps of men. Ellen did not think to knock at the door. She lifted the latch with her thumb and went headlong into the room where many people were standing about or sitting, strange people. She closed the door behind her back and stood leaning against the doorframe, her body trembling. A voice was saying, ‘Did the prize come?’
‘Came yesterday evening,’ Dorine’s voice called out from some other room.
It had seemed a little house when Ellen had come to bring the apple. Now it seemed large to be holding many people. All were laughing and talking very loud but Dorine’s voice came again out of the jargon of words and laughter and shuffling feet.
‘It’s Ellen Chesser. Here’s a chair.’
The other people seemed to have come much earlier and all the first awkwardness was worn away. The party was congratulatory, for Dorine had won a three-piece combing set in a satin-lined box, had won it by selling eight boxes of some salve. Now that all the guests had arrived the prize was brought to the table and displayed. It was a brush and a comb and a hand mirror, all of a hard white stuff. The articles were fastened by little clasps onto a ground of pink satin.
‘Ain’t that something pretty now!’ voices cried out.
‘Eight boxes! That was a heap to sell!’
‘It wasn’t so easy to do, either,’ Dorine said. She wore a pink dress and her cheeks were pink and warm.
‘Name who bought,’ her mother said.
‘Eli bought one and Elmer Ware, and then Ras O’Shay and Mammy. That’s four. And then Sallie Lou and Mrs Al Wakefield and Jonas Prather and Mr Jim. Eight boxes of Lily-bud salve I sold.’ Ellen wished that she had bought one. But then she had not known about it and besides she had no money.
‘I bought it to grease my old buggy with,’ a young man said.
‘I bought mine to see if hit might cure my hens outen their roup.’ A half-dozen unflattering reasons were offered.
Dorine made faces at the speakers. The combing set was passed around and dark rough hands took out the white pieces and passed them to other dark hands. Splintered fingers caught on the soft spines of the satin. Someone discovered that the lining would come out of the box, for it was a crust of cloth glued onto wooden pegs. The three pieces of the set, the two linings of the box, and the box, six articles, were passed through the room. The prize was put together and taken apart several times for joy in the wonder of its mechanism. Ellen sat in her chair, out from the wall, conspicuous, miserable, her feet crossed under her dress, her eyes looking everywhere. She did not want to be sitting on the best chair out in the middle of the room, the chair nobody else would take because it was the best. Scarcely anyone knew her and she longed to be in a corner, but she dared not move. At the same time she longed to be known and to be liked. If the boy with the little beady eyes had said something to her she should have been most happy, or if the girl with the white stockings had, although that last was far too much to hope for. Effie Turpin stood over by the fireplace and presently Ellen knew that the girl called Maggie was a Turpin also although she was prettier than Effie. She wished that someone would ask her to move back into a corner, or she wished that she could say something pleasing and quick and that one or two would look at her and know what she meant. She wanted everyone to like her, to take her into the dance, into the game, into the jokes, or even into the crowd that went into the other room to be out of the way of the dancers.
‘Maybe this lady would be good enough to move back.’ Someone had said it and she was sitting in a corner. She sat, eager, ashamed, embarrassed, the joy of people near making her breath flutter. She heard names called and soon she had a flow of names confused in her mind, blended with running currents of action, looks and words. The fat girl was always slapping at the boy with the beady eyes and these two were always coming back to Tim McNeal and the girl with the white stockings. The graphophone was wound for the dance and then the music came from a large blue and pink metal morning glory. In another room Mr Jim Townley strummed a guitar and now and then he sang a line. Once his voice jerked into the middle of his tonk tonk a-tonk of guitar strings with
Oh…
Say darlin’ say
When I’m far away…
The dance ended and there was a romp. Ellen rose from her chair and went into the other room where she stopped at the door to look about her. Mr Jim finished a stave with a tender arpeggio on the instrument and then muted the strings with a gesture and a little upward flash of his eyes which was directed toward her as she stood just before him. Suddenly she went out of her regret for her torn shoes, out of her memory of herself, out of her lonely nights, out of her presence sitting strangely in the corner at a party.
‘I can sing a song,’ she said.
The people close around grew still. Ellen was standing by the door, terrified at what her lips were saying, her body leaning a little forward from the hips.
‘Well, sing it,’ Mr Townley said. ‘Hush, everybody, hush you-all. Ellen Chesser is a-goen to sing a song.’
‘I can sing Lady Nancy Belle – that’s a story one Mammy taught me a long time ago, one she learned offen her grannie, or I can sing Lucy is a Mighty Generous Lady, whichever you’d rather.’
‘Sing both.’
‘Sing the story one.’
‘Aw, let her sing the Lucy one.’
‘Sing both.’
Nervous movements came over her mouth and strained at her eyes and her throat, but she took a deep breath, caught her breath twice, and began in a shy voice, smiling a little, looking at Mr Townley, or casting down her eyes. After she was well started Mr Townley caught her tune and began to touch the chords on his instrument, and this pleased her very much. She sang:
Lord Lovel he stood by his castle wall
A-comben his milk-white steed;
Down came the Lady Nancy Belle
A-wishen her lover good speed.
A-wishen her lover good-speed.
‘Oh, where are you goen, Lord Lovel?’ she cried,
‘Oh, where are you goen?’ cried she;
‘I’m a-goen, my dear Lady Nancy Belle,
Strange countries for to see…’
She sang of the departing lover and of his promise to return in a year or two or at most in three. But when he had been gone but a year and a day a languishing thought of Nancy Belle came over his mind and he returned only to find the bells of St Pancras tolling and all the people mourning for Nancy Belle who was dead.
He ordered the grave to be opened wide,
The shroud to be turned down;
He kissed and kissed those clay cold lips,
And the tears came a-trinklen down.
El
len sang with bright eyes, her low voice going to the end of the room, settling down over the hushed feet and the listening faces. She had forgotten herself in her pleasure. All had crowded into this room from the other rooms and the guitar was beating a-tonk-a a-tonk-a a-tonk a-tonk, true to every measure.
Lady Nancy died like it might be today;
Lord Lovel like it might be tomorrow;
Lady Nancy died for pure pure grief;
Lord Lovel he died for sorrow.
Lady Nancy was laid in St Pancras church,
Lord Lovel was laid in the choir;
And out of her breast there grew a red rose,
And out of his a briar.
They grew and they grew to the old church top,
And when they could grow no higher;
There they tied in a true lovers’ knot
For all true lovers to admire.
There was a great laugh and a clapping of hands and a stamping of feet when she had finished. Mr Townley made a great bow for her.
‘Hit’s a story about a couple of sweethearts, that’s what hit is,’ one said.
‘Hit’s like a book to read.’
‘Miss Nancy, she died like it would be one day, and this man, her sweetheart, like it might be the next.’
‘Yes, but all he could grow outen his grave was a briar, and that’s something to chop down and grub out.’
‘Hit means a briar rose, you durn fool you.’
‘It’s like a story book to read. Get her to sing it again.’
‘Let her sing Lucy a Generous Lady.’
Ellen said she would not sing again. Lady Nancy was a long song, long enough, she said. She felt confused, wrecked, when her voice ran off the song, ran off the last word of the song. She had moved a long way from herself sitting neglected in the corner and she could not know where her place would now be. She thought the party would break in two, but Dorine came forward proudly and took her by the arm and introduced her to everybody present.
The Time of Man Page 10